Radiohead frontman: Boycotting Israel is patronizing and wrong

The frontman of the rock band Radiohead, Thom Yorke, lashed out at the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement on Friday in an interview with Rolling Stone, saying their efforts to dissuade the band from performing in Israel on July 19 July were offensive and demonstrated a lack of understanding.

"I'll be totally honest with you: This has been extremely upsetting. There's an awful lot of people who don't agree with the BDS movement, including us. I don't agree with the cultural ban at all, along with J.K. Rowling, Noam Chomsky and a long list of others," the musician said.

"There are people I admire like [English film director] Ken Loach, who I would never dream of telling where to work or what to do or think. The kind of dialogue that they want to engage in is one that's black or white. I have a problem with that. It's deeply distressing that they choose to, rather than engage with us personally, throw s**t at us in public."

In April, more than 50 high-profile names, including musician Roger Waters and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, signed a petition calling on Radiohead not to perform in Israel, saying this would be "one small step to help pressure Israel to end its violation of basic rights and international law."

Yorke said those who signed the petition and support canceling the concert are condescending and misguided. "It's deeply disrespectful to assume that we're either being misinformed or that we're so retarded we can't make these decisions ourselves. I thought it was patronizing in the extreme. It's offensive and I just can't understand why going to play a rock show or going to lecture at a university [is problematic]."

Yorke said those who want to boycott Israel lack proper knowledge of the facts, and that the band members should not defer to their judgement, especially Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, whom he says, "probably knows most about these things." Yorke said Greenwood "has both Palestinian and Israeli friends and a wife who's an Arab Jew. All these people to stand there at a distance throwing stuff at us, waving flags, saying, 'You don’t know anything about it!' Imagine how offensive that is for Jonny. And imagine how upsetting it's been to have this out there. Just to assume that we know nothing about this. Just to throw the word 'apartheid' around and think that's enough. It's fu**ing weird. It's such an extraordinary waste of energy. Energy that could be used in a more positive way."